Talk:Kanji

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holizz 23:15, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


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[edit] Kanji = Chinese characters = Hanzi

I've noticed a tendency in the introduction to somehow "distance" kanji from hanzi. In fact, kanji are not 'derived' or 'copied from' Chinese characters. They are, when all is said and done, Chinese characters, full stop. Kanji are a restricted set of Chinese characters, with some simplifications not found in China, but they are indisputably a part of the larger family of Chinese characters.

This is not necessarily apparent to the beginning student of Japanese. But anyone who has gained a deeper acquaintance with the language will be familiar with Kanwa Jiten, a strange beast that is not a "Japanese dictionary" as such, but a dictionary of Chinese characters, interpreted in Japanese. A Kanwa Jiten notes the meanings of characters in Classical Chinese, notes the Japanese on and kun readings, notes the ways in which Japanese usage diverges from Chinese usage, and even notes locally coined characters. But it emphatically is not a dictionary of the Japanese language as such. Only after gaining an acquaintance with these very strange dictionaries can one judge the positioning of Chinese characters within the Japanese language. Noone familiar with Kanwa Jiten would make the mistake of describing Kanji as "derived from" Chinese characters. This would be like confining oneself to a description of the foliage and manner of growth of a carrot with only a passing reference to the root structure. That is why I have modified the introduction to equate kanji to Chinese characters. The result is much cleaner and easier to understand than the earlier version. Bathrobe 16:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

It's so typical japanese. It's a interessting "effect" of japanese nationalism. They want the distance. They can't and don't want to accept their own history. This is the traditional japanese style: Let us forget about the past.
There more example about those behaivor. For example Mengzi is a chinese philosopher but the presented him with the name "Moshi" and never said that he is a chinese because "moshi" sounds more japanese than chinese.
It's the "rest" of the japanese imperialsm.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.73.28.57 (talk • contribs).
The above unsigned personal opinion is hard to substantiate. First, the Japanese themselves, by using Kanwa Jiten, recognise that their characters are related to the larger Chinese tradition. How can you say that they "want the distance"?
Moreover, the tendency to distance kanji from hanzi seems more likely to be committed by foreign students of Japanese, who are not familiar with the larger picture and see Japanese kanji as a separate system on its own. Or by resentful Chinese speakers who don't like English speakers using the word "kanji" to refer to Chinese characters as used in China, which appears to derive from the (Chinese nationalist) view that Chinese words, not Japanese words, should be used to refer to Chinese things. You will actually find that there are ethnic Chinese members of Wikipedia (I won't mention any names) who go around changing the word 'kanji' to 'hanzi' because of this belief.
Finally, this previous version of the opening paragraph gives the appearance of having been written by an ethnic Chinese with an axe to grind (although it's hard to tell because the main change was made by someone who didn't sign their edit): "The Kanji is a Japanese logographic writing system which is directly copied from Chinese characters (Hanzi) except that the pronunciation is changed to various extents."
The fact is, accusations of nationalism cut both ways. It's unfortunate that Wikipedia in its coverage of East Asia has been weakened by the application of nationalism in editing articles -- i.e., attempts to make articles accord with certain nationalistic ideologies, in the passionate belief that these ideologies are "the facts".
Bathrobe 07:54, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. Bathrobe, you're saying "Kanji = Chinese characters = Hanzi", but then you object to (and remove) the statement that "While some kanji and Chinese hanzi are mutually readable, many more are not", saying it's "incorrect information". If anything, the removed statement is a bit weaselly, but I wouldn't say it's "incorrect". Both Chinese and Japanese readers will understand many characters as having the same basic meaning. - dcljr (talk) 22:41, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Ummm... I'm Japanese but "moshi" NEVER sounds a Japanese name to me at all.--222.159.236.67 16:02, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh my god! In English, we call him Mencius! We English speakers are trying to hide the fact that he was Chinese too! Give me a break. adamrice 16:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I cut that part out partly because it was wordy, hard to understand, and not particularly relevant to the section it introduced (kokuji). In other words, it was plain confusing.
The part that was incorrect was the statement "While some kanji and Chinese hanzi are mutually readable, many more are not." I find it hard to support the statement that there are more mutually unreadable kanji/hanzi than there are readable ones and I can't understand on what basis the statement was made.
In fact, the meaning of the statement isn't even clear. Which kanji and which hanzi are we talking about? Simplified? Traditional? Shinjitai? Kyujitai? And who is the person who "can't read" them? The product of the Japanese school system who knows the joyo kanji? The graduate of a Taiwanese high school? The Westerner who's done a couple of years' Japanese at a foreign university? A Japanese professor of Japanese literature?
That's why I cut it out, not because of the use of hanzi and kanji.
User:Bathrobe 3 April 2006

[edit] Hanzi meaning "Han Characters"

On the first sentence of the history of Kanji, it says that the Han in Hanzi refers to the Han Dynasty, but when I had recently looked it up by radicals, the result said it means anything Chinese. Unless I'm prooven wrong, I put up a citation needed template. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Samusfan80 (talk • contribs).

I think you are right. The "Han" in "Hanzi" should mean the dominant ethnic group of China, although the origin of this meaning may be somehow related to the Han dynasty. (See Han Chinese). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Took (talk • contribs).

Han can be used to describe the Chinese people or the nation (or more loosely the Chinese national consciousness). "Han" is also synonymous in its use with the word "Tang". These are two words that most Chinese identify with on an ethnic/personal level (e.g. Chinatown is "tangrenjie" - the Tang People's Street, and hanjian - a traitor who is Chinese).

Ultimately, the "Han" refers to the Han River, and more proximately, the Han people, as mentioned above. adamrice 00:15, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Kanji does *sound* like hanzi(汉字)but China Language in Chinese can be said to be hanyu (汉语). So it does litterally mean "of China".
Quote from Hanzi "A complete writing system in Chinese characters appeared in China 3200 years ago during the Shang dynasty."
In the section of Simplifacation of the same article, it saids "The traditional character 來 lái (come) was written with the structure 来 in the clerical script (隸書 lìshū) of the Han dynasty. This clerical form uses two fewer strokes, and was thus adopted as a simplified form. The character 雲 yún (cloud) was written with the structure 云 in the oracle bone script of the Shāng dynasty, and had remained in use later as a phonetic loan in the meaning of to say. The simplified form reverted to this original structure."
Shouldn't it be Shangzi because the charaters were originally created in the Shang Dynasty?`71.114.92.95 00:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] loanwords

"Before, in general, loanwords had been written using kanji, either used for their meaning (煙草 or 莨 tabako = "tobacco") or to spell the word phonetically(天婦羅 or 天麩羅 tempura)." Can anyone provide a citation for this? I don't dispute that 外来語 are/were written in 当て字, but I don't believe they were only written in 当て字. And the "煙草" example is a bad one: that is plain-old 当て字, but with a lucky combination of characters. And it's still in use today; the word is so ingrained in Japan that it's also sometimes written たばこ. adamrice 23:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I have done some research and satisfied myself that this is inaccurate. It is true, of course, that plenty of loanwords were and still are written in kanji--especially those for everyday items--but this does not seem to have been any kind of rule. I have deleted the passage in question. adamrice 14:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Origin

I removed the following sentence.

There is some disagreement about how Chinese characters came to Japan, but it is generally accepted that Buddhist monks from the kingdom of Baekje in Korea brought Chinese texts to the country during the 5th century.

This was originally added by Exploding Boy [1] and was modified by Markirwin [2]. I don't know where they got this piece of information but I'm quite sure this is wrong.

"Literacy" has been a major topic of ancient Japanese history for decades and countless papers discuss this issue. Among them, I referred to the following:

  • Ōhashi Shin'ya 大橋信弥: Ō Jinni no torai 王辰爾の渡来, Moji ni yoru Kōryū 文字による交流, pp. 214-231, March 2005.
  • Hirano Takuji 平野卓治: Kin'in no shiju 金印の賜授, Moji ni yoru Kōryū 文字による交流, pp. 176-193, March 2005.
  • Kōchi Haruhito 河内春人: Waō Bu no jōhyōbun to moji hyōki 倭王武の上表文と文字表記 (The literacy of diplomatic correspondence by King BU in 5'th century ancient Japan), Kokushigaku 国史学, Number 181, pp. 33-63, November 2003.

--Nanshu 22:11, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Every source I have read on the introduction of written Chinese to Japan has confirmed that it was brought by way of the first Korean emissaries to Japan in the 5th century (the Koreans also introduced Japan to Budhism - which brought with it interest in Chinese culture as well).

  • http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2046.html: "Kanji, one of the three scripts used in the Japanese language, are Chinese characters, which were first introduced to Japan in the 5th century via Korea."
  • A Short History of Japan, Malcolm Kennedy, Mentor Books, 1964: "(. . .) there arrived in Japan a party of Korean scholars, sent by the King of Paikche (백재, modern romanization Baekje) as a thank-offering for the assistance given by the Japanese against his enemy(. . .) With their arrival, Chinese learning and writing were officially established in the Japanese Empire."

Therefore, I believe that this users edits were generally correct, and I am going to incorporate the fact that Korea officially introduced it to the Japanese leadership.
--DinkY2K 07:21, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, those sources are for laymen and don't answer our questions because we cannot check which sources their claims are based on. Would you cite secondary sources that directly refer to primary sources?

One obvious error in Exploding Boy's explanation is that Buddhist monks brought Chinese texts during the 5th century. Actually, the introduction of Buddhism to Japan was of the 6th century (538 or 552), not the 5th century.

In addition, it's pretty easy to find evidences against your sources. According to the Book of Wei of Sanguozhi, the queen of Wa sent a letter to Wei in 240 in responce to an imperial edict (三國志 魏書 卷三十 東夷 倭: 倭王因使上表答謝恩詔). This means that Wa (Yamatai) had some people who had full command of Classical Chinese (most likely Chinese literati).

It should be noted that these diplomatic activities were done with help from Chinese. For example, King San of Wa sent Cao Da (曹達), who bore the title of sima (司馬 military commander), to the Song in 425. The Eda-Funayama tumulus sword inscription of the late 5th century contains the author's name: Zhang An (張安). The situation was the same in the states of the Korean Peninsula. Historical sources show us that diplomacy was led by those with one-character Chinese surnames long before the natives of the Korean Peninsula got sinicied names. See:

  • Tanaka Fumio 田中史生: Bu no jōhyōbun 武の上表文, Moji ni yoru Kōryū 文字による交流, pp. 194-213, March 2005.

So I partially reverted DinkY2K's edits. The following is most puzzling:

Chinese writing, along with Budhism, were officially introduced to Japan by an emissary of Korean scholars sent to Emperor Ingyo from the Baekje Kingdom in 405 AD.

I don't see which event DinkY2K refers to. In the first place, I've never heard of a dating of Emperor Ingyo's reign that includes that year. --Nanshu 10:40, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I never denied that knowlege of Chinese, much less native Chinese speakers, existed in Japan up to the point where Korean diplomats sparked the official interest of the Japanese leadership. Also, I admit the dates could be wrong; my source was a book from the 60s, and the conversion of dates from old Japanese records to the Gregorian Calander has changed, along with the accepted views of most historians.
I find it hard to produce primary sources concerning the history of written Japanese, since this was the essential beginning of history for our purposes. Also, do you consider the beginning of Kanji, the Japanese use of Chinese characters, to be just when the Chinese show up with a scroll, or when the Japanese begin to use it for themselves; for the Japanese language. Your source only shows evidence of Chinese, not Japanese use of these characters. To me, knowlege-of does not constitute the use-of.
I do wonder, however, why you continue to delete edits referencing the large part that Korea played in cultural exchanges with Japan, especially concerning the introduction of Kanji outside of small elite/immigrant circles. Also, if you have information like you posted above concerning the history of Kanji, please add it to the article. I'll do some more research before I add anything else at this point, though.
--DinkY2K 11:05, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Korean diplomats sparked the official interest of the Japanese leadership? Korea played in cultural exchanges with Japan, especially concerning the introduction of Kanji outside of small elite/immigrant circles? Your claim is unsubstantial. We cannot verify it because no source is given. In the first place, we cannot identify which event you refers to. Who were "Korean diplomats"?

And again, it's easy to find evidences against your claim. Samguk Sagi states at the end of King Geunchogo (r. 346-375)'s chapter, "Baekje has never recorded facts with writing system but now that she gets Gao Xing, she starts to document facts."

古記云 百濟開國已來 未有以文字記事 至是得博士高興 始有書記 然高興未嘗顯於他書 不知其何許人也

It's not clear whether this piece of information is correct since Gao Xing never appears in other records as Samguk Sagi notes. But we have circumstance evidence for him:

  1. Judging from archaeological findings, Gao was a prominent surname in the former Lelang commandery on the Korean Peninsula.
  2. In 371, the king successfully attacked Pyongyang, Lelang's former capital. Gao Xing probably came to Baekje as a result of the campaign.

Thus it is unlikely that Baekje's ruling class had already adopted Chinese characters as their own before Chinese documents came to be produced in Japan. Rather, it is presumable that Chinese refugees that resulted from conflicts of Wu Hu and their descendants were organized under kingship in new eastern countries. See [Tanaka:2005].

In early phase of written Japanese, we can hardly make distinction with written Japanese and Chinese. The first step of Japanization would be to describe Japanese things in Chinese, which entailed phonetic transcription of Japanese terms, especially proper nouns. But written Japanese could not be without kun (not just on reading). People started to understand Chinese text by translate it into Japaese and then word selection came to be fixed... Well, the problem is too much for me. I support Okimori's theory and think that the prototype of written Japanese appeared in the early 7th century. See:

Okimori Takuya 沖盛卓也: Nihon kodai no hyōki to buntai 日本古代の表記と文体, 2000.

This is an interdisciplinary and as far as I know, it involves history, Japanese linguistics and comparative linguistics. I find it quite difficult to integrate the achievements of these areas because they often contradict each other. Historians are not familiar with linguistics and some comparative linguists are awfully ignorant about history. --Nanshu 12:33, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2000 Japanese Kanji List

I noticed this list skimming the article, and I'm going to *attempt* to wikify it and add to it. Help is welcome and much appreciated, I think this sort of thing is important for people taking interest in the Japanese language, Chinese writing, or whatever. -DinkY2K 23:53, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused. Are the on and kun readings of the kanji being sorted out somehow, and only one being put in the table? Dekimasu 09:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I've only included the kun readings thus far (to my knowlege, at least), because I don't know the onyomi --DinkY2K 10:06, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
You're not being consistent about on/kun at all--you've got some of each (ゲン for 言, ジン for 人 are both onyomi--if you ever see a reading ending in ん, it's onyomi). Also, it's conventional to use katakana for onyomi, hiragana for kunyomi (IIRC, Nelson's does this in romaji with ALL CAPS for onyomi, italics for kunyomi) , so as you go along, I'd suggest doing that. adamrice 23:02, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Is it proposed that we actually list 2000 jouyou kanji in the article with their on and kun readings? Why 2000? If this is the intention, is it encyclopaedic? I would imagine it would be better to list them in a separate article perhaps. The heading of this section in the article is quite confusing. =/ --Lor 09:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Would it be more appropriate to include a link to the Jōyō kanji article; possibly improving its layout/accessibility to Japanese language learners either by modifying that article or by creating a new article (e.g. organized by category or grade level, and/or in a table form with more information about each one, like readings, as opposed to just one definition). A single page summarizing this type of information (currently available one-by-one from wiktionary) for common Kanji would make a handy reference. Speight 21:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I just found Kyōiku kanji, which is already laid out more or less in the way I suggested above (by grade level, with on and kun readings.) I'd recommend linking to Jōyō kanji, Kyōiku kanji, and Jinmeiyō kanji, explaining the type/layout of information available in each, instead of duplicating some of this content in this section. Speight 22:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I think linking in to a separate article devoted to a kanji list is a good idea, especially considering those lists are in better shape than this one. adamrice 14:17, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Unless somebody objects, I am going to remove this section from the main article, since we already have the joyo kanji page linked from this one. adamrice 13:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Gone. What a weird section it was. It doesn't seem encyclopaedic to have a list of 2000 kanji (or a list that claims to or intends to contain 2000 kanji). It was of no use to anybody unfamiliar with Japanese (doubly so because the readings were given in kana).--holizz 23:15, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split on'yomi and kun'yomi

I believe that on'yomi and kun'yomi should be split into their own sections. I have two reasons to believe this:

  1. It's quite feasible that people would want to link to those terms from other pages, and it's quite confusing to have that redirected to a page called "kanji"
  2. They have enough content to warrant their own articles

I think we could have a summary here and have the standard main article link to a separate article.

Kcumming 19:21, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Disagree. 1. Neither of those sections is so long that they need to stand on their own; 2. There's considerable overlap between them (you can't discuss one without discussing the other, as in "when to use which reading"), which would either require readers to flip back and forth between the kun/on'yomi article and the kanji article, or require editors to duplicate information in both, which would inevitably result in forking. The potential need to link directly to a term isn't limited to kun'yomi and on'yomi -- you could say the same of gaiji or any other specialized term on the page. adamrice 15:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, since no-one appears to have a different opinion about this anymore, i disagree too, I will remove the tag in the article saying it might be split into seperate articles. I mean what does it look like if you open an encyclopeadia and its got a sign smack-bang in the middle talking about splitting up the entry!? If you disagree, tell me! vilem 22:09, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images

Images, please.--//Mac Lover TalkC 03:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This is a GREAT article!

I've been pretty down on Wikipedia lately, having seen so much self-serving, unsubstantiated, non-NPOV junk in articles in my recent reading. This piece really restores my faith in Wikipedia! Especially since this is--funny as it might seem to an uninitiated reader--a pretty controversial subject! As the discussion page shows, there is ancient cultural hostility to spare out in these parts (I'm an American living in Tokyo), and it does my heart AND my brain good to see that we can still present a factual, informative, detailed analysis of this fascinating and complex subject!

Thanks very much to the people who put this together! Great work! --Douglas Williams 60.238.72.208 09:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Made-in-Japan characters with on'yomi

Kanji invented in Japan would not normally be expected to have on'yomi, but there are exceptions, such as the character 働 'to work', which has the kun'yomi hataraku and the on'yomi dō, and 腺 'gland', which has only the on'yomi sen.

OK, I have a question. If the character was made in Japan, why would any of its readings be considered on'yomi? I'm not questioning that they are classified on'yomi (which I am aware is the case), but why. - furrykef (Talk at me) 00:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Because those characters are created as pictophonetic compounds (形声) (see Chinese character classification#Phono-semantic compound characters (形聲) and those pronunciations are based on the phonetic parts and not based on yamatokotoba associated with the characters, I guess. --Kusunose 04:07, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
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